As chair of the 2007-08 Faculty Senate, education professor Eamonn Callan, a specialist in moral and political theory, presided over an agenda that sparked its share of controversy through the year. The senate comprises 55 voting members elected by the faculty, and 15 non-voting ex-officio members, including the deans of all seven schools.
In May, the senate's Committee on Research reported that Stanford's participation in a five-year, $105 million computing research program with the Army does not conflict with the University's Openness in Research Policy. Sixty faculty members had raised concerns about the Army High-Performance Computing Research Center in a letter they signed in the spring quarter of 2007, but the senate committee said no classified research would be conducted on the Stanford campus or by Stanford faculty.
The committee did not address the ethical questions of military research raised by the faculty letter.
Earlier, in November, the senate approved two proposed amendments to the Student Judicial Charter. One amendment extended off-campus jurisdiction to offenses that “threaten the safety and integrity” of the Stanford community, and the other increased the statute of limitations for serious crimes, such as sexual and physical assaults, to two years. Laurette Beeson, an assistant dean in the Graduate Life Office, said the latter change would make Stanford's judicial policy more consistent with California state law.
Also in November came discussion of the Hoover Institution's appointment of former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld as a distinguished visiting fellow. The result of that debate was the creation of a special committee to examine and make recommendations on criteria for appointments by all University institutes.
